Halfway to Neverland
by blueSKIES247
Summary: After the close of one adventure and before the start of the next, it's just Amy and the Doctor, alone together in the universe, deciding they're good for each other and maybe tomorrow doesn't have to come. / Each chapter takes place between episodes, series 5-7.
1. running away

**note: **in this story, each chapter will show what happened between episodes. this is more like a writing exercise for me rather than a full-fledged story. i'm watching the series right now (trying to catch up before season 7 premiers!) and after every episode, i'll write a chapter and post it. so, expect quick updates!

this starts with series 5 when amy comes in and will eventually end with amy's last episode on _doctor who_. because amy is my favorite. and yes, if it isn't obvious, i ship amy/eleven so hard, but this will remain canon to the show.

what happened between the first two episodes "the eleventh hour" and "the beast below" is already filmed, so i'm not going to write about it. if you haven't seen the bonus scene, go to youtube and search "meanwhile on the tardis 1." this chapter starts after episode 2.

* * *

running away  
_between "the beast below" and "victory of the daleks"_

"You know what I said about getting back for tomorrow morning?"

Amy pauses and the Doctor watches her expectantly. Behind him, the TARDIS awaits, practically pulling Amy in with some magnetic force field of intergalactic adventure. It just seems so _easy_, being with the Doctor (excluding the almost getting swallowed by a star whale part.) When she's with the Doctor, "tomorrow" suddenly loses its meaning, for she could potentially spend a million years in that blue box and still be back for morning, technically. She could potentially evade "tomorrow" forever, without ever really evading it at all.

"Have you ever run away from something because…because you were scared?" she continues. "Or not ready? Or just because you could?"

"Once, a long time ago."

"What happened?"

"Hello." The Doctor smiles and Amy doesn't really understand.

Perhaps he isn't taking this very seriously. She has to tell him. She has to tell him just exactly what "tomorrow" entails and why when the Doctor arrived fourteen years too late, she still took his offer of escape without looking back.

But then _Winston Churchill_ calls and the Doctor lights up like he's talking to an old school mate and Amy's previous confession quickly gets forgotten. The Doctor hangs up, fiddles with the console, and then the TARDIS starts moving again.

"You know Winston Churchill," Amy deadpans in disbelief. "How many Prime Ministers do you have on speed-dial?"

"Well, there's Harriet Jones, remember her? _Harriet Jones, Prime Minister_," he mimics the ex-Prime Minister's trademark self-introduction. "Rose and I actually convinced her to run for office, you know. Well, and then I was responsible for removing her from office later on. Oh, but at least she was human. You know Harold Saxon? Yeah, spoiler alert, he was actually a Time Lord. Wow, that sounded like the punch line to a bad joke—"

"Wait, wait, wait," Amy interrupts his rant. "Harold Saxon was a Time Lord, like you? But I thought you said you're the last of the Time Lords, that there aren't any left."

The Doctor's jovial expression disappears and he moves to the other side of the central console, avoiding eye contact with his new ever-curious companion. "He _was_ a Time Lord…Ah, but what were we talking about? Yes, other Prime Ministers I know. I have such a rocky relationship with the government."

Amy chases after the Doctor until the two are going in circles around the console. "Earlier, you said something about being a parent. Did you once have children? What happened—"

"Good old Winston and I go _way _back—"

"And who's Rose?"

"And Margaret Thatcher! How could I forget about her?"

"Doctor! Would you quit changing the subject! It's like you're…" Amy doesn't finish her sentence because A) she was about to say _it's like you're running away from your past_ and she realizes that's what the Doctor's comment had meant in the first place, and B) at that moment, the Doctor abruptly turns around and Amy, who had been relentlessly following him around, abruptly walks smack into him.

The Doctor angrily slams his hands onto the edge of the console, one on either side of Amy, so she is, for all intents and purposes, trapped. Her questions have gone too far this time. He's glaring at her now, no trace whatsoever of the smiling Raggedy Doctor she'd always known, and for the first time, Amy is afraid of the Doctor. He has such raw _power_ behind those old alien eyes and she is but a weak human in comparison. He could kill her, right now, and "tomorrow" will come (or perhaps it never will, she's not quite sure) and no one in Leadworth will ever know what became of Amelia Pond, the girl who disappeared the night before her wedding without looking back.

But the Doctor's anger only lasts a few seconds, extinguished by the look of fear on Amy's face. He sighs, a tragically heartbreaking sigh, and for a few seconds more, he lets all pretenses drop and his eyes show the wretched pain of the memories Amy's questions brought to mind. The sadness is so suffocating, she has to gasp for air. Poor Doctor, her poor, poor Doctor. And then his head falls forward until it is unceremoniously resting on her shoulder.

_A lot of bad stuff happened_, he'd told her. _And I'd love to forget it all. But I don't. Not ever._

They stand like that until the TARDIS lands, his head on her shoulder, bodies pressed together so Amy could feel his prominent heartbeat—no, heartbeat_s _in a quick rhythm of four.

"So, when I asked if you've ever run away…?" she whispers.

"I'm still running," he replies.

She is just about to raise her arms to hug the Doctor back when he drops his arms and steps back, releasing her. She awkwardly lowers her arms to her sides.

"We're here!" the Doctor announces, transitioning back to his cheerful self always changing the subject away. "As lovely as your nightie is, there's a war out there so you might want to change. There should be a closet of woman's clothing, uh, well, somewhere in here. I haven't really explored the new TARDIS yet."

Amy nods and walks off in the general direction the Doctor pointed. In the end, the Doctor still didn't really answer any of her questions. But the _thing _they just shared, that tender moment when he allowed himself to be vulnerable, Amy thinks that's the most truth the Doctor has revealed to anyone in a long time. Maybe that's why he needs a companion, so he has someone to tell the truth to, every once in a while. So she smiles, glad her Doctor trusts her so, and goes in search of the TARDIS's wardrobe, wondering what kind of outrageous adventure the Doctor will get her into next.

Sure enough, when she returns, the Doctor already has his head sticking out the door.

"Amy," he calls. "Winston Churchill."


	2. the girl who stayed

the girl who stayed  
_between "victory of the daleks" and "time of the angels"_

"So, how _did _you think of it?" the Doctor asks. "Ooh, Amy, quick, hold down that lever!"

She dives to the right and pulls down the indicated lever. "Think of what?"

The TARDIS rumbles again as they take off for space. Amy wobbles a bit, losing her grip on the lever, before the Doctor steps in to take her place. "Asking the professor about the girl," the Doctor clarifies. "Of course, looking back now, it makes perfect sense! What is more fundamentally human than fancies of the heart? But how did you figure it out when I didn't?"

"Simple. I'm human and you're not."

(And definitely not because Amy knows what it feels like to fancy someone you're not supposed to. Right? Right.)

The Doctor presses one last button and the TARDIS steadies. Amy peers over his shoulder at the monitor which shows nothing but vast, faraway nebulas passing by. They're in outer space again, just drifting by. _They're in outer space again, just drifting by. _God, that will never cease to amaze her.

When she looks away, she finds the Doctor leaning against the railing looking at her with that lop-sided smile. "You're pretty brilliant, Amy Pond," he says.

And then she ruins the perfectly wonderful moment by yawning like a lion.

"But humans, no matter how brilliant, still need their pathetic sleep," the Doctor chuckles. He takes Amy's hand and leads up the stairs into the first door on the right. It's a small room with a soft, almost cloud-like carpet below and a clear skylight above. It is breathtaking. Amy gladly lies down on the center of the little sanctuary, gazing at the passing stars overhead. To her surprise, the Doctor lowers himself down beside her and starts pointing out names of constellations in galaxies she's never even heard of. The lull of his smooth voice effectively causes her eyelids to droop.

"You don't have to leave, you know," the Doctor says after a while. "You can stay. I want you to stay."

She smiles and feels seven years old again. Carefree, fairy-tale spirited, and traveling with the Doctor, like he promised.

"Amy Pond who is going to stay, where would you like to go next?"

She yawns once more and her eyelids start to shut. Time is hard to measure without relativity, but it had to be two days with the Doctor already and the last time she had any sleep was the three hours before the Doctor showed up in the middle of the night. So, yeah, she's exhausted. She rolls over on her side, curling up beside the Doctor. "Let's go to a planet. Right after this nap."

(Except sometimes, the Doctor is a filthy liar. Sometimes, the Doctor promises a planet and takes you to a museum instead.)


	3. nomads in space

**note: **"the time of angels"/"flesh and stone" is a continuous two-parter. what happened between "flesh and stone" and "vampires in venice" is the filmed bonus scene "meanwhile in the tardis 2". so, this chapter picks up after the vampires.

* * *

nomads in space  
_between "vampires in venice" and "amy's choice"_

"So, boys, are you best friends now or what?" Amy calls out as the Doctor and Rory step inside the TARDIS. In the time they had taken to discuss the strange silence outside, Amy had already ventured into the TARDIS kitchen, fixed herself a cup of tea, and is now sitting comfortably on the chair flipping through profiles of various planets on the monitor.

"Aren't you cozy," the Doctor mumbles. He begins turning the dials, launching the TARDIS out of 16th Century Venice and inputting the coordinates for their next destination.

"Wait, so we're just gonna go now?" Rory asks. "How long do you think this will take? Shouldn't we go back and pack some clothes? Does this mean I still have to cancel the wedding?"

"What part of 'this is a time machine' do you not understand?" the Doctor retorts. "You'll be back in time for your wedding. And I think you'll find everything you need in the TARDIS. We're well-equipped for travelers and besides, you're not the first boyfriend that decided to tag along."

Rory stops mid-step on the stairs and Amy stops mid-sip of her tea. Both stare at the Doctor incredulously before he realizes he's done it again, said something stupid that sounded a lot better in his head.

"Not _my _boyfriend," he explains, "I mean a boyfriend…of a girl…who was travelling with me."

Shaking his head, Rory continues up the stairs and down the hall to explore the depth of the TARDIS. Amy hops up from her perch on the seat and approaches the Doctor. "What happened to that boyfriend and the girl?"

The Doctor considers telling the truth. The girl fell in love with the Doctor instead, more than she could ever love her boyfriend, and she is now living in a parallel world with a half-human duplicate of the Doctor's previous incarnation, while the boyfriend ended up marrying a different girl who had also travelled with the Doctor. This time, it even sounds stupid in his head.

"Um, well, they both settled down," he chooses his words very carefully, "and they're happy. They graduated from me, you know. They're off dealing with aliens on their own now."

Amy scoffs at the thought. "I can't imagine Rory and me ever fighting off aliens by ourselves."

"You never know. Mickey Smith was quite a useless coward in the beginning, but look at him now. He's travelled back and forth between dimensions and saved the world multiple times. He's unstoppable! Time travel does that to people."

"Maybe _you _do that to people."

The Doctor is taken back. "I'm just saying, Rory just might surprise you."

"Surprise, how?" Rory is back and he's changed out of his stag night shirt. He looks between Amy and the Doctor, but neither answers him.

"Ah, here we are!" the Doctor exclaims, changing the subject. He parks the TARDIS and claps his hands together in excitement. "Amy, Rory, you're in for a real treat. Last one out is a smelly fish."

/

They travel like that for weeks. The Doctor, Amy, and Rory, three nomads wandering in space. They visit the Zaggit Zagoo Bar, literally catch a literally falling star, help inspire a poem for Emily Dickinson, and dine with the Empress of Karass Don Slava.

And the whole time, Amy would bounce back and forth between the Doctor and Rory, her imaginary friend and her fiancé, like an indecisive nightingale who cannot pick a branch to build her nest. But the Doctor can't find the heart to force her to choose, because what if she doesn't make the right choice? What if she chooses the Doctor?

"Is this snow?" Amy asks, catching a few falling flakes as they're leaving Karass Don Slava.

The Doctor examines the small particles. "No, they're psychic pollen."

"What, do they cause psychic allergies?" she jokes.

Shortly after they depart Karass Don Slava, the lights in the TARDIS flicker, just once. Then, the impossible noise of birdsong. Then, they all fall asleep.


	4. aftershock

aftershock  
_between "amy's choice" and "the hungry earth"_

"You're disappointed."

The Doctor jumps at the voice. He had left Amy and Rory steering the TARDIS and he was adjusting his bowtie in front of his mirror when the unmistakable voice of the Dream Lord startles him again. There he is, the Dream Lord, the maniacal, dark version of the Doctor himself, standing behind him smirking at him through the mirror. The Doctor doesn't turn around, but stares at the reflection in the mirror.

"Amy chose Rory. She chose the TARDIS over Upper Leadworth, but she chose him over you," the Dream Lord continues. "And you're disappointed."

The Dream Lord isn't real, just a lingering projection from his conscience, yet the Doctor can't help but argue back. "No I'm not. Amy is _supposed_ to choose Rory."

"That's why you always pick pretty human girls for your companions. You want them to love you. You relish it. But Amy outsmarted you at your own game."

"Well, Rose chose Mickey at first, too."

The second those words left his mouth, the Doctor realizes his terrible mistake. The Dream Lord's face stretches into a wicked grin, for he finally wrestled the confession from the Doctor. "Oh, Doctor. You wouldn't. You wouldn't keep trying to win Amy over, just for the sake of _winning_. You wouldn't try to ruin another relationship. Because that's just cruel."

"Shut up," the Doctor mutters through clenched teeth.

"But that's what you are. You can save the universe ten times over but it still doesn't make up for the fact that you're really just a cruel old man."

"SHUT UP!" Outraged, the Doctor turns around only to find the Dream Lord has disappeared once more. Or perhaps the Dream Lord was never there at all and the Doctor has been talking to himself this entire time. It wouldn't be the strangest thing to have happened.

Suddenly, Amy runs to his side, alarmed by his scream. "Doctor, what's wrong?"

"Stay away from me!" The sight of Amy after everything the Dream Lord said makes him shout louder than he intended, so he repeats it again in a softer plea. "Stay away from me, please."

"What are you saying?" Amy puts her palm to the Doctor's forehead, like she's checking for a fever. "Are the dreams still messing with you? You said the psychic pollen harvested from you, are you going to be okay?"

"Amy, let me be the doctor. I'm fine. Go back to Rory, he can't drive the TARDIS on his own." He takes her hand off his forehead. Then, from the corner of his eye, he sees the Dream Lord again in the mirror reflection.

Seeing the panic in the Doctor's eyes, Amy follows his gaze. "Nothing's there."

The Doctor's legs start to grow weak and he feels like he'll fall asleep again. He has Amy help him to the nearby couch. "Maybe you're right," he says. "The psychic pollen was feeding off me for a long time. I think…I think this is an aftershock. I'm falling asleep again. Amy!"

Amy actually has no idea what is really happening to the Doctor. But it sure doesn't help to have both of them scared, so she improvises. "Uh, it's going to be fine. You got rid of the psychic pollen, remember? It's all gone. You're not going to wake up in a different dream again. You're just going to sleep a while and regain your strength."

His head droops forward a few times as he desperately tries to stay awake. Eventually, the tiredness proves too much to fight and he tips over, his head falling onto Amy's lap.

"I'm right here," Amy says. "And when you wake up, I'm still going to be here. This is real."

She thinks he's already asleep, but then, with his eyes closed, he whispers, "You're too good to me, Amy Pond."

After the Doctor awakes, he decides to forget everything the Dream Lord said, but that proves quite difficult since he's got the memory of a Time Lord. So every time he accidentally brushes against Amy, he flinches like he's been mildly electrocuted. He constantly walks around to strategically ensure Amy is closer to Rory than she is to the Doctor. Somewhere, in a reflection in the corner of his eye, he occasionally sees the Dream Lord's smug smile. _I'm not trying to win anyone over_, the Doctor wants to shout, _if anything, I'm pushing Amy and Rory together._

He tells himself he's doing the right thing. He tells himself that this is Amy, little Amelia who had the crack in her wall, and Amy is not Rose or Martha or Donna. He tells himself he is perfectly capable of travelling with a friend without breaking her heart or his in the end.

But to be fair, the Doctor tells himself lots of things. Like, for instance, he tells himself that he's just landed the TARDIS in Rio de Janeiro, but that's obviously not the case.


	5. the point

the point  
_between "cold blood" and "vincent and the doctor"_

"Doctor! Rio's calling!" Amy playfully says when the Doctor steps back into the TARDIS.

He looks over to see her turning gears at the console, the familiar anxious smile stretched across her face as she awaits the next trip. As if this were only some ordinary trip through time and space. As if she didn't just lose the love of her life. As if she hadn't been downright _devastated_ onlya few minutes prior. As if she wouldn't have ceased to exist along with Rory if the Doctor hadn't forcibly dragged her away.

He can't even look at her.

"Doctor? What's that?" Amy asks, pointing at the broken shard of the TARDIS in the Doctor's hands.

"Nothing, just some space debris." He quickly wraps it up in the handkerchief and tucks it away in his jacket pocket. As he makes his way over to Amy, he spots the red box holding her engagement ring which had fallen onto the floor due to the TARDIS's shaky landing. When Amy isn't looking, he bends down and scoops the box up, storing it in his pocket after the TARDIS piece. Might as well starting calling his pocket the collection-of-things-Amy-Pond-is-not-supposed-to-know-about.

"Well?" Amy says.

"Well." The Doctor repeats. He stares into Amy's eyes, searching for the slightest recollection. Somewhere, deep down inside, she still remembers, and any second now, she'll look around asking where Rory is.

But she doesn't.

And it's all his fault.

He sighs and goes over to her, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tight. _What is the point of you? _Amy had asked the last time Rory died in the dream world. He had no answer then, and he has no answer now. He only has unbearable guilt threatening to crush him alive.

Amy doesn't quite understand the reason for this embrace. He seems to be doing that a lot. The Doctor is a real hugger. "So, can we go to Rio now?"

He releases her and nods feverishly, a brilliant but sad smile on his face. "Yes, we can go to Rio. We can go anywhere you want. Anything to make you happy."

No aliens, no monsters, no life-threatening situations. Just the Doctor and Amy, walking arm in arm through Arcadia, the Trojan Gardens, Musee d'Orsay. He would often look over at her during these trips, trying to permanently ingrain the image of Amy's smile into his mind, like some desperate form of compensation.

The Doctor just wants to know that he's doing right. Nine hundred years of mistakes and the Doctor just wants to do the right thing. And right now, the right thing is to keep Amy by his side and out of harm's way, because he's already lost Rory so there's no way in hell he's going to ever lose Amy.


	6. remember me

remember me  
_between "vincent and the doctor" and "the lodger"_

"You know, I kind of wonder what would have happened if I did marry Vincent," Amy ponders as she and the Doctor walk back to the TARDIS from the museum. "If maybe that would have changed things."

"_Amy_." The Doctor groans, puts one arm around her shoulders, unlocks the TARDIS, and walks in. "You need to stop thinking about all the things you _could have done_. It'll only drive you mad."

Amy senses the soft tint of grief in the Doctor's words and she realizes he's referring to himself. He's lost so many loved ones in his life, he must be drowning in thoughts of hypothetical universes where everyone survived.

"I guess you're right," Amy shrugs. "And like I said, I'm not the marrying kind anyway."

The Doctor looks at her with a crestfallen expression and she wonders if it's something she said.

After they're back up in space, whizzing past asteroids and spaceships, Amy leans against the railing and attempts to ask some dangerous questions again. "Hey Doctor?"

He joins her by the railing, slouching further down so their heads are at the same height.

"I've been thinking, traveling with you is just…_everything_. I could go like this forever, just you and me. But then I remembered all those girls that came before me. And if they're experiences were anything like mine, which of course they were because it's _you _and you're never short of fascinating, then how did they ever leave? How could they be offered all of time and space and simply walk away?"

The Doctor just tips his head back and looks at the ceiling, like he's trying to see through to the stars or like he's trying not to cry. "Some do walk away," he says, "the sensible ones, at least. Some I have to leave behind, for their sake. And some get taken away from me, and I'm powerless to save them."

She wonders which way she'd rather go. She wonders how long until her time is up in the TARDIS and Amy Pond becomes nothing more than memories and a face at the end of a long list.

"You'll remember me, yeah?" she asks.

He kisses her forehead. "I'll always remember you, Pond."

They're quiet for a long while and the Doctor returns to the console, setting the coordinates for the 5th Moon of Cindie Colesta. Suddenly, Amy perks up again. "Okay, just say I belong to the second category and you have to leave me behind somewhere. Could you leave me with Vincent?"

The Doctor rolls his eyes and playfully shoves her away. "You and Mr. Van Gogh and your ginger babies," he mutters.

"You're just bitter because you're not a ginger."

(Which, as we all know, is the truth.)


	7. the ghost of a memory

**note: **gah, sorry for not updating in forever. i really wanted to finish my hunger games fic before i posted anymore of this. but now it's done and we're back on track! expect updates roughly every other day.

* * *

the ghost of a memory  
_between "the lodger" and "the pandorica opens"_

It's an engagement ring.

Amy has been staring at the small red velvet box for five minutes now and yet she still can't seem to process it in her mind. The Doctor. Has an engagement ring. In his jacket pocket. Whathowwhenwhy? Who?

Of course the first idea that pops to her mind is the Doctor proposing to _her_. Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. She knows. But she keeps imagining the Doctor dropping down on one knee and holding up the ring and _Amelia Pond, will you_…she has got to get that idea out of her head. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Then she thinks it must be for River. River Song is (most likely) the Doctor's future wife, so maybe he's going to propose to her the next time they bump into her. Locking the future timeline into place, or whatever. That's pretty exciting.

But something in the back corner of her brain tells her the ring isn't for River Song. For some strange reason the ring looks _familiar_, which is impossible because she has never seen the ring before, yet there's something tugging at her, like she's supposed to remember the ghost of a memory.

The Doctor's footsteps approach, so Amy quickly stashes the ring into her own pocket and finally retrieves the red pen she was looking for. She scribbles out the note and goes to leave it for the Doctor's past self to find, otherwise there will be a paradox and the universe will explode or something. Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff.

Just as she's about to leave, she turns her head down the street feeling like someone just called her name even though no one is there. And now that she thinks about it, no one called her name at all. Shaking away the weird moment, she returns to the TARDIS.

/

She keeps the engagement ring. It's not so much that she's overly covetous or wants it for herself, it's just she keeps meaning to confront the Doctor about it but can never find the right time or the right words. It just sits in her pocket and every time she takes a step, she can feel its weight. Like the constant beating of the tell-tale heart, the ring grows heavier and heavier.

/

The Doctor takes her to Space Florida. She gets decked in proper tropical attire and she waits by the console as the Doctor fumbles around trying to land the TARDIS.

Someone calls out her name again, but when she turns around, there's no one else there in the TARDIS. And now that she thinks about it, no one called her name at all. Why does that keep happening?

But then the Doctor is holding the door open and the bright light of twin suns are beckoning her, so Amy runs out onto the soft beach sand. "Automatic sand," the Doctor tells her matter-of-factly.

They build sand castles and Amy accidentally-on-purpose steps on the Doctors and he retaliates by purposely-on-accident pushing her into the water and they get mistaken for boyfriend and girlfriend twice and a married couple once more and at the end of the day, she hops onto his back and makes him carry her the whole way back to the TARDIS and then he dumps her onto the chair by the console and practically collapses onto her lap if she hadn't pushed him aside.

You know what? She's happy. Here, right now, sitting by the Doctor with sand still in her toes, she's really, really happy. The happiest she's been in a long while.

And yet.

The mystery of the engagement keeps weighing down on Amy and, god, she can't _remember_ but it's like there's something _missing_ from the current picture. Something huge.

Still, as she looks over and the Doctor flashes her that little stupid grin, she thinks to herself that _if_ the ring were somehow meant for her, which is a ridiculous thought, but _if_ it is, then perhaps it wouldn't altogether be such a bad thing if she married the Doctor. You know, _if_.

/

Then, one day, the Doctor decides to visit the oldest planet in the Universe. And that's when everything changes.


	8. nothing's wrong

**note: **i'm skipping the christmas special because technically months have passed between the episodes and this chapter would have been forty pages long. so, onto series 6! "the impossible astronaut" and "day of the moon" are a connected two-parter, so here we continue after "day of the moon."

* * *

nothing's wrong  
_between "day of the moon" and "the curse of the black spot"_

"You told me you were pregnant."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I was. I mean I thought I was. Turns out I wasn't."

"No, I mean why did you tell _me_?"

"Because you're my friend. You're my best friend."

Right. Of course that's why she told him. Why else? Definitely not because there was a chance the baby might be the Doctor's because he and Amy actually spent that one night together but he has no recollection because of the universe exploded and some events inevitably got erased from time and maybe that was one of them but Amy remembers and this was her awkward confession. Nope, that scenario did not run through the Doctor's mind, at all.

In the end, the Doctor suggests they go for an adventure because frankly they've spent enough time trying to defeat the Silence and they all deserve some harmless fun. But as he pretends to set the coordinates, he's actually doing a full-body scan on Amy. The scanner keeps flashing between positive and negative, as if Amy's body can't decide if she wants to be pregnant or not. As if she's pregnant one second and not pregnant the next. As if the child is both existent and nonexistent, _at the same time._

Oh, please no.

No time-vortex-induced abnormalities. No paradoxical deformities. No timeheads.

"Doctor, is something wrong?" Amy asks.

The Doctor quickly shuts off the scan and fakes a smile. Amy, Rory, and River still refuse to tell him what's wrong, therefore he won't tell them what's wrong; it's only fair, right?

"Everything's fine. Oh, look, even better, we're picking up a distress signal! And it's...it's coming from a pirate ship. How about that? Pirates are fun. Go change into some swashbuckling clothes, my friends."

Rory laughs and walks up the stairs towards his room. But Amy lingers with the Doctor and takes him by surprise when she hugs him.

"Thanks for coming back," she says. "When you left us, I think Rory was convinced you were gone for good and that our days in the TARDIS with you were over. But I kept saying that you promised you'd keep in touch and really, two months isn't that long, not compared to fourteen years right? And, yeah, I'm just glad I can still travel with you."

"Amy, I always come back. Always."

Amy nods and follows after Rory up the stairs. She thinks back to the worst day of her life, thinks back to how the Doctor's lifeless body looked on the ground, thinks back to the way the fire burned the Doctor's corpse. The Doctor doesn't always come back. Not always.

When Amy is out of sight, the distraught Doctor slumps down against the railing. Amy is pregnant, or not, or maybe. Whatever the case, it's not safe for her to be traveling through time like this. Just like how pregnant women aren't supposed to ride roller-coasters or drink alcohol or use Jacuzzis. You can't expect a baby to have traversed five different centuries and thirty galaxies _before birth_ and be perfectly healthy.

"You should've left the Ponds."

He knows, before he even looks up, that it's the Dream Lord speaking. The Doctor has managed to evade the Dream Lord for almost a year now, but he always knew his dark reflection would return.

"Amy and Rory are married now," the Dream Lord continues. "It's time for them to move on, settle down."

"I know, that's what I tried to do," the Doctor snaps back.

"But all it took was an invitation and Miss Pond calling you her best friend and you just let them back in. Don't you see? Every time you're involved, their lives get endangered. You just wait, one day…one day you're going to get them killed."


	9. insomnia

insomnia  
_between "the curse of the black spot" and "the doctor's wife"_

Amy tries to sleep, but she only dreams of the Doctor dying, over and over again. After waking from the nightmare for the fifth time, she gives up and climbs down the ladder of the bunk bed (she still has to give the Doctor grief for this.) In the bottom bunk, Rory seems to have no problem getting sleep. Then again, Rory isn't as close to the Doctor as Amy is. And Rory nearly died just a few hours ago, so that has to be somewhat exhausting.

Amy kisses Rory on the forehead, then steps out of their room. She walks down the corridor and enters the kitchen, surprised to see the Doctor there. He's not eating—he rarely ever eats, Amy's noticed—but simply sitting there at the counter, fiddling with his sonic screwdriver.

"Amy!" he greets when he sees her. Then he frowns and checks his watch. "What are you doing up, you still need five and a half more hours of sleep."

"Insomnia," she lies.

The Doctor smiles. "Me too."

She sits down across from him at the counter. She thinks the Doctor probably has bigger, badder nightmares, more than she could ever imagine, and she thinks if she was the Doctor, she wouldn't sleep much either. Sleep brings dreams bring pain.

"Doctor…have you ever tried to save someone who was supposed to die?" she asks, because she can't help herself and no Rory or River is there to stop her this time.

The Doctor thinks back to Pete Tyler, to Adelaide Brooke, to River Song. He remembers and it hurts. "Yes," he answers. "More than once."

"And what happened?"

"They still die. They might live for a few more minutes. They might go a different way. But in the end, they still die."

"So, there's nothing you can do?"

"Oh, there's always something I can do." The Doctor continues fiddling with his sonic screwdriver.

"But can you, like, _freeze_ time? You're a Time Lord and I know you can travel forwards and backwards through history, but can you ever just stop it? If you can't prevent the inevitable, can you at least delay it?"

"What has gotten into you, Amy? Why are you asking questions like this?"

She shrugs and changes the subject. Thankfully, he lets her. They sit and chat some more as the universe continues on without them for a while. Amy does a pretty good impression of the sea siren and the Doctor laughs until he can hardly breathe. Maybe even the Time Lord himself cannot freeze time, but if the next two hundred years pass filled with moments like this, it will be enough.

When Rory finally wakes up, hours later, Amy decides to go change, shower, and get ready for a day. It's hard to keep track of days in the TARDIS since they wake to different suns every morning. When Amy returns to the control room, the Doctor and Rory are busy discussing the king and the robot, an adventure that had taken place in the void stretch of time when Rory ceased to exist. Amy sighs and joins her boys.

She'd like it if it ended like that. Just Amy and her boys, traveling together, until they all run out of time.


	10. two months

two months  
_between "the doctor's wife" and "the rebel flesh"_

The Doctor spends hours trying to get the TARDIS to talk again, and when the lever suddenly pulls down on its own, the Doctor's spirits soar. He laughs and lets the TARDIS, his good old sexy TARDIS, steer them to the next location, which is most certainly not the Eye of Orion.

He is so excited that the TARDIS is communicating with him again, perhaps not verbally but still as glorious all the same, he rushes into Amy and Rory's room. Which, in retrospect, could have potentially been highly awkward and the Doctor really needs to learn the concept of knocking. Thankfully, Amy and Rory were asleep and clothed and the Doctor breathes a sigh of relief.

"Amy, you have to see this!" he shouts gleefully, taking her hand and pulling her half-asleep self out of bed.

She stumbles around and has to lean against the Doctor to keep her balance. She tiredly rubs the sleep from her eyes and grumbles a complaint which the Doctor completely ignores. From across the room, Rory stirs, sits up in the bed, half-listens to the Doctor ramble on about how the TARDIS is back and took them to the amazing crystal planet. Rory seriously considers getting up to join them for a second, then decides otherwise, and falls back into his slumber.

"Doctor, I'm tired," Amy yawns as she continues to be dragged down the corridor by the eager Doctor.

Then he pushes her out the doors of the TARDIS.

Then she isn't so tired anymore.

The planet is absolutely breathtaking, composed entirely of clear crystals. Small crystalline prisms jut out from the clear, shiny ground, and marvelous mountains of sheer crystal capture the light of the stars in the distance. It's the thing of fairytales and dreams.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" the Doctor smiles. "Just don't touch any of the crystals."

Amy wanders through the translucent pillars of crystal and tries really hard to take in the wonder of the planet, but the sight is so magnificent that her brain can hardly process its grandeur. She is so overwhelmed by the simple beauty that she trips over a crystal rock and cuts her knee open.

A small drop of blood falls onto the ground, but immediately upon contact, it also crystallizes. So, there's now a little bit of Amy Pond is part of the landscape. It's such a nice thought that she almost wants to cut herself some more, just to watch her blood grow into such pretty crystals...

"Don't touch!" the Doctor warns again. Amy doesn't listen and mindless reaches for a nearby crystal formation. Recognizing the awed gaze in her eyes, the Doctor quickly wraps his arm around her waist and half-carries her back to the TARDIS. "And now it's time to go."

"But I want to stay," Amy complains, "I want to stay on this beautiful planet."

"It's not just a planet, Pond. It feeds off living organisms by absorbing the life out of them and turning them into crystal growths. One touch and you become a crystal statue forever."

"Oh."

"Yes. _Oh._"

Once inside the TARDIS, and away from the deceptively beautiful crystal planet, the Doctor sits Amy down on a chair by the console and holds his sonic up to her skinned knee. The wound quickly closes and everything would have proceeded as normal, except the Doctor catches the sonic's readings in the corner of his eye. And something is terribly off.

To make sure it wasn't just an error, the Doctor scans Amy with his sonic once more. Again, the reading is still the same. There seems to be some sort of wavelength surrounding Amy, an intergalactic signal shooting across the universe right into Amy. The readings also show that at the same time, faint traces of the TARDIS's time vortex is being absorbed by Amy, as if her body required the energy to...to what? What does a perfectly human body need external energy for, and why is it receiving a signal?

Unless.

No. It couldn't be. Could it?

"Doctor?" Amy softly touches his arm. "Is everything okay?"

"How long did you and Rory live on your own in Leadworth? How much time passed before we met again in America?"

"Two months. Why does that matter?"

But the Doctor was already making the calculations in his mind. Two months. A lot could happen in two months. Before that, the Doctor had sent them on three honeymoons in three different solar systems, a month each. Then three months they were in America 1969. It's starting to add up to very bad news.

Amy yawns again, so she hops off her seat and goes back to bed, fortunately forgetting the subject. The second she is out of the console room, the Doctor pulls up the screen again and runs the full body scan on Amy. It continues to flicker between positive and negative, pregnant and not pregnant. Hours later, after Amy and Rory have awoken, the scanner is still oscillating.

The Doctor looks over at Amy, playing darts with Rory as if it's just another day aboard the TARDIS, as if she's just normal old Amelia Pond. But she's _not_ just normal old Amelia Pond, as the scanner would gladly show otherwise, and the Doctor finally has a theory.

He despises that theory.

However, the most despised theories are often the truest.


	11. everybody dies

**note: **okay, i'm not just arbitrarily jumping ahead. "the rebel flesh" and "the almost people" is a two-parter, and between "the almost people" and "a good man goes to war" amy is stuck in demon's run, not in the tardis. and this story is about amy and the doctor in the tardis, remember? and _then_, after demon's run, the doctor goes off by himself and amy and rory return to leadworth. that's why this chapter skips ahead to "let's kill hitler."

(and maybe because i'm impatient and i want to get through the episodes already. same diff.)

* * *

everybody dies  
_between "let's kill hitler" and "night terrors"_

"Will we see her again?"

"Oh, she'll come looking for us."

"Yeah, but how? How do people even look for you?"

The Doctor pauses halfway up the stairs. He turns around and gives a conspiratorial grin. "Oh Pond, haven't you figured that one out yet?"

He spins back around and starts walking away again, which is really annoying because that means Amy has to run after him since he always leaves in the middle of a conversation and never lets her finish all her questions.

"But Doctor, she's going to be okay, right? River gave up her remaining regenerations to save you. Does that mean if something were to happen to her, she'd actually die?"

The Doctor stops in the middle of the corridor, but he doesn't turn around. No, because turning around entails facing Amy Pond, looking her in the eye, and lying to her about River's well-being. And he could never do that. Not to Amy, not about her daughter, not when he'd witnessed River's death long before he ever crash-landed in Amy's backyard. Because to tell the truth, no, River is not going to be okay. She died before she was born.

In all his nine hundred years, that's the single most painful paradox he's ever encountered. Poor River Song, whose story ended before it even began.

"Doctor?" Amy asks again.

Instead of answering, he shouts to Rory. "Permission?"

A disgruntled reply comes from back in the console room. "Granted."

The Doctor hugs Amy because that way, he can comfort her without having to look her in the eyes. "Amy, you know that River is going to grow and have all sorts of adventures with us. She's going to fight the Weeping Angels with us, remember? Just because she only has one life now, doesn't mean she's going to stop living. You can accomplish a lot in just one life. You know River. She's going to jump out of spaceships and jump off buildings and give me hell. She's going to be all right."

"But she's going to die."

"What is it with you humans and your fixation on death?" the Doctor groans. He pulls away and places his hands on either side of Amy's face. "Yes, River will die one day. So will you. So will I. Everybody knows and that everybody dies."

Amy is tearing up now and the Doctor makes the tragic mistake of looking at her eyes. Guilt starts welling up inside him again, so he pulls her in for another hug. His past companions pop up once more in his mind and he vows he won't see the day when Amy becomes another voice interface he can't bear to look at. He'll fix this. Just this once, he'll fix everything. He's ruined enough lives as it is._  
_

"Um, Doctor, there's another thing I never got the chance to ask you," Amy says shakily. "Remember when you made a ganger version of yourself and then you switched shoes with him? That means, well, that means it was _you_ who stormed out of the room. I followed you and I...I told you about..."

"You told me you watched me die. You were invited."

Amy appears as if she'll cry, but the Doctor remains standing tall with a thin smile on his lips.

Everybody knows that everybody dies.

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

The Doctor shrugs. "Me too."

Amy takes a few deep breaths, followed by a hollow laugh. "This is all so exhausting, you know. Remember, when I first met you, and we went around fighting Prisoner Zero and giant eyeballs and Starship UK with the star whale and Winston Churchill and the Daleks?"

"That all seems like child's play now, doesn't it?" the Doctor muses.

Then Amy realizes that technically, those events never happened. Not in this version of the universe, where she's always had parents and never ran off with the Doctor the night before her wedding. But she remembers, how can she remember?

She's just about to ask the Doctor when Rory suddenly runs up the stairs with a worried expression on his face.

"We left Hitler in the cupboard."


	12. and a giant bear

**note: **i decided that "bad night"/"good night", the mini-videos, take place here after "night terrors." that's just my headcanon, so in this chapter there will be references to those videos because i can't help myself and "good night" is so amy/doctor-tastic.

**edit (post "the power of three"): **that moment when i write about king henry viii and amy becoming his queen and then a month later it actually happens in a different episode. which is cool that i predicted it. but not cool because it makes this chapter wrong. grrrr. oh well, i'm too lazy to change it now. just know that this was written before "the power of three" and you know, i would go totally go beat up the writers of doctor who for stealing my idea, but hey, great minds think alike :P

* * *

and a giant bear  
_between "night terrors" and "the girl who waited"_

After much brainstorming and the Doctor impatiently waiting and mocking their thinking faces, Amy and Rory finally decide where they want to go next. Rory wants to meet King Henry VIII, so the Doctor gladly pilots the TARDIS to land in 16th Century England.

It all goes smoothly in the beginning since the Doctor and Henry seem to be old friends (to which Rory mutters, "is he old friends with _everyone_?") and the king graciously invites the three travelers to dine with him. Amy is ecstatic when she gets to wear "one of those fancy, poofy dresses" but Rory is less than enthused when he has to change into "stockings and a shirt with huge sleeves." Still, it's great fun as they eat a feast for a king and hear Henry's grand tales.

Then, Henry orders musicians to play and asks "my dear Amelia" to dance. And that's when things start getting out of hand. In the end, there's a lot of running, screaming, sonic-ing, Rory adds King Henry VIII to his list of historical figures he's punched in the face, Amy nearly becomes the new Queen of England, and all three of them get exiled from England indefinitely.

So, all in all, a good day.

That night, Amy couldn't fall asleep and hears the incessant ringing of the TARDIS phone, so she climbs out of bed and answers it, wondering where the Doctor is. And then the Doctor shows up in his dress suit, holding a goldfish in a bowl, and then he's chastising Amy for murdering a fly that really wasn't a fly but a whole alien population and Amy can't decide if this is a crazy dream or real life with the Doctor. It's often hard to discern between the two.

The next day, it's Amy's turn to pick the destination, so they visit a platinum planet seven thousand years in the future. There's a perfectly tranquil lake that reflects the sky and when they jump in, it's like swimming in a liquid mirror. But then, apparently, the mirror lake water contains a bacteria that the 71st Century humans have grown immune to, but is slightly poisonous to Amy and Rory's 21st Century human selves, so that became near-death experience number five-hundred and two.

She hears the Doctor sneak out later that night, when the Doctor thinks she's asleep, so she goes and sits on the stairs to wait for his return. The look on his face when she busts him is priceless. The situation would only have been better if there was a swivel chair and a lamp so Amy could turn on the light and slowly turn around, like _I have been expecting you. _Anyways, she finally gets to ask him the question that's making it hard to sleep at night: how she can remember two versions of her life, pre- and post-Pandorica? They talk about how life doesn't make any sense and how time is constantly rewritten and the Doctor cheers her up by taking her back to the fair of her childhood in 1994.

They watch little Amelia drop her ice cream. She just stands there, staring at the puddle of ice cream on the ground, as if she can't fathom what just happened, and then her face scrunches up like she's about to cry. The Doctor gives Amy a nudge, so she quickly walks over and buys her younger self a new ice cream. Little Amelia's face lights up as if all of life's problems just got solved because this nice lady bought her ice cream. As little Amelia skips off into the fair, the Doctor reappears at Amy's side. He's purchased two ice cream cones and is holding one out for Amy while he licks the other. He tells Amy not to think too much.

The Doctor drags Amy into the fair and says he'll win her a giant stuffed bear at the ring toss, but he fails miserably and Amy ends up winning herself the giant stuffed bear. They ride the ghost train, Amy, Doctor, and the bear, and Amy rolls her eyes and lets the Doctor hold her hand because he's scared. After that, they ride the ferris wheel and the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver so that the wheel gets stuck with Amy and the Doctor at the very top of the wheel. While the fair workers try to fix the problem below, Amy rests her head on the Doctor's shoulder and smiles.

See, this is what traveling with the Doctor is _supposed_ to be. Simple, happy, comfortable. Just Amy and the Doctor. And the giant bear.

On the third day, it's the Doctor's turn. He decides to take them to Apalapucia. And that's when it all went wrong.


	13. prequel to a farewell

**note: **since the doctor leaves amy and rory at the end of the god complex and they don't travel together in the tardis again until next season, this is the last chapter until series 7 premiers! i don't know, maybe this story was a nice refresher for you? anyway, thank you to the small handful of you that are reading this story :) there's five more episodes of amy pond, which means five more chapters of this before it all ends.

* * *

the prequel to a farewell  
_between "the girl who waited" and "the god complex"_

It takes Amy at least two days to get over the fact that she died. Or, that a different her, an 36 years older Amy Pond who'd lost all hope and passion in life, an Amy from a different timeline, had died. That Rory and the Doctor had intentionally allowed it to happen. That, for all intents and purposes, Rory and the Doctor had killed her, to save her. She just can't imagine being on the other side of the police box door when the TARDIS dismaterialized.

How wretched that must have been, watching the people you love leave you behind.

Both the Doctor and Rory repeatedly try to cheer her up, making her tea and taking her to intergalactic ice cream and belting out songs as loud as they can because the console room has really good acoustics. But more and more, it's starting to feel like a facade. For the first time, traveling with the Doctor feels like _traveling _with the Doctor, when once upon a time, it was home, second nature, like breathing and being.

At night, when the Doctor thinks she's asleep, Amy hears him sneak out to go see River. One night, she even heard River come inside the TARDIS. And it's so breathtakingly bittersweet because it's her daughter and it's her Doctor and they have so many adventures ahead of them, but who knows how long Amy will be around? Maybe that's unnecessarily pessimistic, or maybe she's just died one too many times.

They keep traveling and she keeps getting herself in life-threatening calamities of the alien variety and the Doctor keeps saving her. (But in Amy's defense, one time on the fifth moon of Jupiter, it was the other way around, with the Doctor thrust into the damsel in distress role, so there.) It's just as exciting as it's always been, but then again nothing is quite the same after Apalapucia and the 36 years of waiting that never was.

It's not that she wants to leave the Doctor. She never wants to say goodbye to her best friend, the imaginary Raggedy Doctor who turned out to be a real alien.

No, it's that she's afraid the Doctor will say goodbye to her, and soon.

She finds the little room with the cloud carpet and the open sky, the place the Doctor showed her back when it all began, and she almost suffocates in nostalgia. She doesn't even realize she's crying until the Doctor suddenly appears beside her and wipes a stray tear away.

"Do you remember," she asks, "when I asked you about your previous companions? And you said some walk away, some you leave behind, and some get taken from you?"

The Doctor nods silently.

"Well, I've been thinking. You and I, we've been through everything together. But no matter what happens, I know I could never find the heart to walk away from you," she says.

"And I swear upon all my lives that I will never let anything in the universe ever take you away from me," he replies.

"So then I guess we both know how this will end."

They sit side by side, neither saying a word, for the longest time. A million stars pass by overhead but the Doctor doesn't name a single one.

Finally, he holds her hand and offers a small smile. "All I know is I'm going to die. And when that time comes, _you_ can't be there next to me, because you were already there. Your past, my future, remember?"

"Your death isn't for another two hundred years. You told me you were over a thousand years old! We still have time."

The Doctor chuckles and absentmindedly runs his thumb across her knuckles as he keeps a steady grasp on her hand. "Two hundred more years with Amelia Pond. I'd like that. But answer me this: haven't I hurt you enough?"

"But kind of a good hurt," she whispers.

He laughs and cries and sighs at the same time, then wraps his arm around her shoulder, resting his head on hers because even though neither will admit it, this conversation sounds like the prequel to a farewell.

"You know, you're kind of like my Peter Pan," Amy says. "You come visit me at night when I'm just a little girl with your flying police box and promise me ridiculous dreams. Later when I tell my parents, they don't believe any of it. Then you come back twelve years later and you haven't aged a bit. That's why I came along with you. I wanted to go to Neverland, I wanted adventure and to never grow up. But..."

"But Wendy does grow up in the end," the Doctor finishes for her. "Peter Pan almost gets Wendy killed so he returns her home because she'll be safe there. But he promises to keep visiting, it's just sometimes he gets the date wrong so you can't get too upset with him. And even though Wendy is gone, there's always her daughter Jane to accompany Peter Pan."

Amy's smile is illuminated by the comets and suns. "Yeah. Good old Jane."

"We're a good pair though, Pond."

"Yeah. We always were. Like Peter Pan and Wendy. We're classic."

Then Amy lies down on her back and the Doctor lies down too. It's like the time before, except now they're both older and wiser, Amy is married, and the Doctor is running towards his death. Perhaps Neverland is running out of things to offer. Perhaps the next adventure will be their last together.

For now, it's just Amy and the Doctor, alone together in the universe, deciding their good for each other and maybe tomorrow doesn't have to come.


	14. goodbye, hello

**note: **the new series is here! i missed the premier last saturday and i was SUPER bummed and couldn't get around watching it until friday. but i did get to watch the new episode yesterday!

oh, and is this going to be a thing now, the doctor picks the ponds up at the beginning of each episode and drops them back home at the end? because that basically ruins the entire premise of this story i'm writing. i mean, _10 months_ between "asylum" and "dinosaurs"? really now? i want the ponds traveling with the doctor in the tardis again, damn it!

also, if you're confused how i calculated six years since "god complex" and now, see my timeline on my tumblr.

* * *

goodbye, hello  
_between "asylum of the daleks" and "dinosaurs on a spaceship"_

They teleport out of the asylum just in time and land in the TARDIS and fly away to the shrill sound of twenty thousand Daleks screaming "DOCTOR WHO?!" and the Doctor just laughs as he expertly flips the switches at the console and steers the ship into the time vortex and feels invincible once again.

She'll hate to admit this, but for a brief moment, Amy Pond truly believed things were going back to the way they were. Back to when she and Rory traveled with the Doctor and forgot all other cares. Back to when repeatedly risking her life with the Time Lord _was _her life. Back before she and Rory ever had that stupid fallout.

Back to when things were right.

But years have passed (the slow way, the normal way, the boring way) and Amy's not the little girl who waited anymore. It's been six years since the Doctor dropped them off at their new home after the hotel of fear. Six years since she last stepped into the TARDIS and traveled in space. Sure, the Doctor has kept in touched and dropped by to say hello, but it's not the same as going to Neverland. Because it's been six years and Amy Pond has grown up.

"But isn't it bad if the Daleks don't remember you?" Rory points out. "It's like starting all over again."

"Yes, but this time I have the advantage," the Doctor replies. "I know how this story goes. And I know how it ends."

"Hey, what happened to soufflé girl?" Amy looks around the TARDIS, counting only one-two-three aboard.

The smile falls from the Doctor's face and Amy thinks she knows how this story ends too. He simply shakes his head and says, "She saved us."

They land back on Earth, back in front of their home, and Amy wonders if this is how it's always going to be from now on. Lots of goodbyes and lots of time before the next hello.

"What about you? Are you still trying to save me?" Amy asks the Doctor, gesturing through the open door towards home.

"Amelia Pond, I'm always trying to save you." They hug and it's almost like before.

Rory has walked out onto the street, awkwardly standing in front of the doorway, wondering if it was implied that he was allowed back in the house now or what.

"You and Rory going to be okay?" the Doctor asks.

"Yeah. Yeah, we will. Thank you." Amy kisses the Doctor's cheek and begins to walk out after Rory when she abruptly turns around. "You'll still visit us, right? You'll call and tell us about the wild adventures you're having? And promise you'll join us for Christmas dinner again this year."

"Of course. I promise."

She holds onto that promise and as the days turn into months and life carries on, there's a still a small part of her in the back of her mind that has refused to grow up and that still sits outside every night to wait for the Doctor because he promised.

But the Doctor's been late for his promises before, Amy should know better than anyone, so when Christmas comes and goes and no Doctor arrives with the snow, she tries not to be too disappointed.

It's life...Just life, that thing that goes on when the Doctor's not there.


	15. three hundred years

**note: **sorry this is so late, guys. did you know that college life is really busy?

for amelia-finch who really wanted something with the precious "you'll be there till the end of me"/ "or vice versa" moment. i tired to incorporate it. kinda.

* * *

three hundred years  
_after "dinosaurs on a spaceship"_

_The others, they're not you._

/

After he drops everyone off (stunned dinosaurs, fiesty Egyptian queen, bewildered grandfather-in-law and all) the Doctor walks into his empty TARDIS and sits down on the bench by the console. What a day, huh? But there's always the inevitable downside to having a good day filled with all your favorite people. At the end of the day, when they're all gone, you're left feeling so much more alone.

It's just, for a brief moment, the Doctor truly believed things were going back to the way they were. Back to when he traveled with Amy and Rory and forgot all other cares. Back to when he constantly put Amy's life in danger whenever he tried to impress her. Back to when he was still her Raggedy Doctor that no one else thought to be real.

Back to when things were right.

Because Amy told him she can't _not _wait, even now, after all this time, and really, that girl needs to learn to not say things like that because Time Lords sometimes tend to get their hopes up too high and when they fall, it's brutal. Reality is brutal. When the Ponds said they'd rather go home, that they're not staying, it just about killed the Doctor because Amy, his little fairytale-named Amelia Pond, has never said no to him before.

"She's a lot better at saying goodbye than you are."

When the Dream Lord appears this time, the Doctor is unfazed. He just ignores the voice and the mocking reflection and thinks of the time when Amy held him in his lap and told him it's going to be fine.

"If you'd never gone back after your death," the Dream Lord continues, "if you'd just let them think you were dead all this time, you think Amy would still have all this faith in you? No, it's because you keep going back, you keep making all these promises, and you keep reigniting the flames right as they're about to go out. You're cursing your own fate. This could've been the one time your companions ended up all right and yet...well, we've been over this too many times already."

The Doctor just shakes his head because he knows it's useless. Every time he leaves Amy and Rory, something always brings him back. He can only manage to travel alone in the TARDIS for so long before he misses the thrill of companionship and he ends up on the Ponds' doorsteps again. This time, they visit New Earth, the ancient Qing Dynasty, and even bump into River Song in the Bone Meadows before the Doctor decides to take the Ponds to the Day of the Dead festival in Mexico. (Which they never actually made it to and it's like Rio all over again, but did you expect anything else from the Doctor?)

And in a way, the Dream Lord is right. The Doctor has never been so awful at _leaving_. Donna is still working as a temp and happily married. Martha and Mickey are still freelance alien hunting and happily married. They're still here and yet the Doctor never goes back to see them. He meets new adventurous souls everyday and yet he never lets any of them take Amy's place.

Three hundred years since he first crash-landed in Leadworth and it's still Amy Pond.

Three hundred years and the story is not over yet.

/

_You'll be there til the end of me._

_Or vice versa._


	16. for old time's sake

**note: **full version.

it's a little hard to order the episodes since "a town called mercy" happened within "the power of three" (during the seven week anniversary trip) so that's why "a town called mercy" is left out in the description of this and the previous chapters.

* * *

for old time's sake  
_before "the power of three"_

It's three in the morning when Amy wakes up to the sound of the TARDIS.

Except, it's not. The night is dead silent. Just the faint ticking of the clock and Rory's steady breathing as he slumbers on beside her. She strains her ears to listen some more, but still nothing. No TARDIS, no Doctor, just a midnight dream that seemed too real. She shakes her head, turns onto her side, and goes back to sleep.

Well.

After she checks the window. You know, just in case. She holds her breath as she pulls aside the curtains, but she can't decide if it's because she wishes the Doctor will be there or not there. The way her heart sped up when she saw the blue police box on her lawn is probably a dead giveaway.

As she races down the stairs and out the backdoor, she wonders why the Doctor arrived with the parking brakes off and why she could still hear a nonexistent sound. Twenty years of listening out for that stupid TARDIS and it's instinct now.

The second she reaches the garden, she knows something is wrong. The Doctor has those sad eyes again, almost like when he dropped her and Rory off at this house the first time, right after the hotel of fear and faith. It's just, back then, he was mostly anxious, worried that he would lose her. Now, he looks mournful, like he already lost her.

"You weren't supposed to know I was here," he says blankly, when she walks up to him.

"Too bad."

He chuckles, but the sound is so strained. "Amelia Pond, always foiling my plans."

"It's been six months since the dinosaurs." They've reached the point where they have to sync timelines, kind of like what he and River do, and it's bittersweet because Amy can't help but think back to the glory days in the TARDIS when their months and years ran in perfect unison. "What about you?"

"Oh, the dinosaurs? That was ages ago..." He trails, doesn't look her in the eye. Maybe he thinks she won't notice how he didn't answer her question, but she does.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Nothing's wrong." (She's heard one before.) "I was just stopping by, on my way to 1996 actually, and I really can't stay for long. Wouldn't want to interfere with the timeline and rip a hole in time and space."

"Doctor, did something happen in the future? Something bad?"

"The future? The future is safe. Really, really safe."

(She's heard that one before too.)

He turns to go back into the TARDIS but Amy reaches out to stop him. The moment her hand makes contact with his arm, he freezes as if he's been electrocuted, pierced in the soul, touched by a ghost. But she doesn't let go.

"You don't have to go, you know. You can stay. I want you to stay," she repeats his original words with a sly grin. Because that's like their thing now, keeping each other close at hand and not leaving, never leaving.

But he pulls away, and he leaves, and as the TARDIS is about to disappear, it's the most horrible feeling in the world, having someone leave when you've begged them to stay. Then the door opens again and the Doctor pokes his head out.

"I'm not ready to say goodbye yet," he says. "I'm the last of the Time Lords, I make the rules, and I say I'm not ready to say goodbye yet."

"Okay...?"

"So what do you say? One more trip, you in your nightgown, me in your garden, offering you the stars." He widens the door some more and the gleam from the TARDIS console beckons her inside.

"Fine. But we have to be back by morning. I actually mean it this time."

"Come along, Pond. For old time's sake."


	17. okay

**note: **chapter 16 is updated, so go read that first. thanks, darlings.

* * *

okay  
_between "the power of three" and "angels take manhattan"_

It's Rory who suggests they should go back to the drilling site in Cwmtaff and wave at their younger selves from ten years ago. Not that Amy or the Doctor haven't thought of it before, but rather they can't help thinking of what happened afterwards. Namely, when Rory died and got erased from existence.

Still, they land the TARDIS in an empty field and Amy and Rory walk up the hill. Across the valley, they can make out a second TARDIS materializing and three figures exit the box. The Doctor three hundred years younger and the Ponds back when they weren't officially_ the Ponds_ yet. Rory raises his hand to wave, and Amy follows, and then their younger selves wave back before rushing off to investigate.

Oh, aren't they precious, the three of them? Practically children, sleuthing around this mystery town.

Amy wishes she could cross the valley and reach them, warning her younger self of all the horrible things that will come, but also all the magnificent things too. That the Doctor will die, but not for real. That she will have a baby and then lose that baby, but it'll be okay because it's River Song. That the Doctor will leave, but he always comes back.

"It's funny, because ten years ago, I thought we had come here on our own, to relive our memories," Rory says. "I didn't think we'd_ still_ be traveling with the Doctor."

The way he said "still" worries Amy. As it the Doctor was overdue for some new companions, as if Amy and Rory have long passed their expiration date.

When they get back inside the TARDIS, Amy pulls the Doctor aside. "What happens now? I mean there aren't cracks in the universe anymore, so what happens to Rory?"

"Well, time got rewritten," he explains. "This time, Rory lives."

There's so many timelines swirling around inside Amy's brain. She remembers her childhood without any parents and the Doctor falling out of the sky, she remembers her childhood with her parents and the Doctor coming back for her wedding, she remembers life in a place where everything is wrong and all of history is happening at once. She remembers every single reality that ever was because she's Amelia Pond, the girl with the crack on her wall. But with all these contradictory memories pressing against each other in her head, she wonders if this is even a fraction of what the Doctor feels, and how can he possibly bear it?

/

"What did you do," she asks, "when you were traveling without us?"

It's some months later and the TARDIS is orbiting a 48th Century Earth. The Doctor, Amy, and Rory are lounging in the library, perusing the eclectic collection of publications.

"Same old," the Doctor replies as he removes a fat volume from the shelf and looks across at Amy through the empty space. "Intruding royal weddings. Saving civilizations. Running."

"Yeah, but who with?"

"I thought we already went over this. There's no one else besides you Ponds. You're it for me."

"You don't mean that," Amy says. "I mean, you'll find someone else after we..."

The Doctor places the fat book back on the shelf.

Amy shuts her mouth.

The last unspoken word dissipates into the air and pierces the silence: _die._

/

Later that night, Amy finds the Doctor standing by the open TARDIS door, looking forlorn into the open universe. She steps beside him and whispers, "Sorry."

He kisses her forehead and they're okay again.

Okay.

/

Half a year passes and they land in New York City, 2012. Amy prepares a picnic. Rory carries the blanket. The Doctor finds a Melody Malone novel and decides to take it along.

And that would be the first mistake.


	18. let me know

**note: **the last one guys :( sorry i'm so late it's not even acceptable. but here's to the ponds.

* * *

let me know  
_after "the angels take manhattan"_

_There's a little girl waiting in a garden._

/

The Doctor lands in that familiar backyard, all the way back to the start. Leadworth is calm, the gentle wind spins a small red pinwheel, and the stars are overwhelmingly bright. It's 1996 again, back before anything had ever happened, but after everything already has ended. He readies himself, puts on a happy face, but the second he opens the TARDIS doors and little Amelia is peering up at him with all the excitement in the world, his smile dies away.

"Can I come along now?" she asks, bouncing up to her feet, swinging her small suitcase.

And it kills him.

"Doctor?" She slowly walks forward and tugs on his sleeve. He wonders if she'll notice that he's not wearing the raggedy clothes anymore or if, twelve years from now, when he dons the tweed jacket for the first time, she'll remember back to this night. He wonders when Amy figured it all out. He wonders if, all this time, Amy has always known how it ends.

"Amelia, I can't take you with me right now."

Her face scrunches up in frustration. "But you promised! You said five minutes, you said you would come back."

"I know, and I'm sorry. I still hold my promise and I will come back one day to take you to see stars and planets beyond your wildest beliefs, but you'll have to trust me. And you'll have to wait. It may seem like I'm leaving you, but I always come back. Always. You and me, Pond, we're going to have a good long run. But you have to be patient."

"So, I can't come?" Amelia whispers, crestfallen.

"Not yet. You're not ready. Soon, I promise. Just keep your Raggedy Doctor in your heart and know that this is real, that this isn't a dream, and one day I will return just when you need me most."

"I don't understand."

"Oh, Amelia, Amelia, little Amelia." He bends down and kisses her on the forehead. She's so young and so full of expectations. Never would have guessed this little girl would someday break his heart. "You will understand when you're older."

"People always say that."

"Am I people?"

She grins and he grins back.

He walks back inside his TARDIS and is just about to disappear before he hurriedly sticks his head out the door again. "Oh and one more thing. When you _do _understand, let me know."

/

_Tell her this is story of Amelia Pond. And this is how it ends._


End file.
